Black Adder

Black Adder
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassCarrack

As of 3059, the Carrack-class transport Black Adder was serving as the CSA Black Adder within the Clan Star Adder touman. The Black Adder formed a part of the five-ship Beta Naval Reserve.[1] The Black Adder remained on active duty throughout the next decade[2] and into the Wars of Reaving.

History[edit]

With Clan Coyote complicit in a number of attacks on holdings belonging to Clan Star Adder, the Star Adders responded by sending the Gamma Naval Reserve Star—of which the Black Adder was a part—to the Tamaron system with the intent of claiming some Coyote holdings as retribution. The Star Adder forces arrived on 18 October 3072, but found themselves facing far more by way of defenses than they had anticipated. In addition to the anticipated Texas-class battleship CCS Ancestral Home, Tamaron was defended by a newly-constructed Olympus-class defense station, numerous stars of aerospace fighters launched from that station, a number of assault DropShips, and the Lola III-class Transport CCS Rage, last known to be in the control of Kindraa Mattila-Carrol of Clan Fire Mandrill.[3]

Star Admiral Gavin Turgidson of the Star Adders issued a call for safcon to the surface of Tamaron, only for the Coyotes to immediately rebuff his request. The Ancestral Home quickly closed on the Star Adder forces and drew first blood, destroying the Black Adder. Two Star Adder WarShips, the Essex-class destroyer CSA Eagle and the Vincent Mk. 42-class CSA Centaur, responded by firing on the Ancestral Home, only to have their barrages apparently inflict little or no damage. The Rage took advantage of the confusion resulting from the failed Star Adder broadsides, crossing in front of the Eagle and crushing the nose of the Star Adder WarShip with weapons fire. The damage inflicted by the Rage merely destroyed a number of weapon bays, but the Eagle was then seen to begin tumbling out of control, only for several Stars of Coyote aerospace fighters to close on the vessel and cripple her power plant and maneuvering drives. The Eagle was left tumbling; equally as mysterious as the apparent inability of the Star Adder WarShips to inflict damage on the Ancestral Home was the subsequent discovery from records of the battle that the Rage had beamed some form of localized HPG broadcast to the Eagle immediately before the ship appeared to go haywire.[3]

The Centaur was joined by the Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser CSA Divine Conquest in launching another round of broadside fire at the Ancestral Home, which was rapidly approaching the Adder forces; for a second time, the Star Adder weapons appeared to have little effect. As the Star Adders tried to deal with the Ancestral Home, the ship executed a high-g turn and roll which stunned the Star Adder forces and left the Ancestral Home positioned to fire on the Divine Conquest; the resulting full broadside gutted the Star Adder vessel from stem to stern, leaving the Star Adder forces broken. The Centaur gathered what few Star Adder DropShip and fighter forces remained and broadcast a request for hegira, which the Coyotes accepted, allowing the Star Adders to leave the system.[3]

References[edit]

  1. Field Manual: Crusader Clans, p. 119: "Naval Assets"
  2. Field Manual: Updates, p. 50: "Naval Assets"
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 The Wars of Reaving, p. 112: "Stalwart Defense"

Bibliography[edit]